Norway Is Wet As Shit.

We woke up to a fucking lovely sun-shiny morning that was bright as can be, really. Fuck yeah. We spent the night at our new friend Andreas’ house. He and his ladyfriend are students, and their joint is super fucking small. The bathroom is a closet with a toilet, a sink, and a showerhead that sticks out from the wall. That’s right, the entire bathroom is also the shower. Cool, but kinda weird.

Anyway, we raided his cookies, smoked a bowl, and were fucking stoked to be going to Norway! Fucken black metal country and shit—burning down ancient churches—

fuck yeah! But to get out of Denmark and into Sweden, then into Norway, we have to cross another monstrously long bridge. The Oresund Bridge is something like 25,000 feet long, and takes you about halfway across the Oresund Sound (the channel between Denmark and Sweden) to a man-made island/nature reserve called Peberholm (peeb’r-home! NAAAAR!!). From there the highway goes under water for the rest of the journey in the Drogden Tunnel. When its construction was completed in 1999, crown prince Frederik, of Denmark and crown princess Victoria, of Sweden met midway on the bridge and fucked the shit out of eachother to commemorate the genesis of such a bridge/tunnel combination… it’s a hell of a dirty combination, really. Think about it.

Driving thru Sweden made me feel like I was driving thru Massachusetts: lotsa rolling hills and foliage. Pretty fucken sweet. Too bad we didn’t have any shows in Sweden. Looking back, it was kinda stupid that we didn’t. Oh well, hindsight is a fucken bitch sometimes (F.I.D.). We finally got to Halden, Norway after dark. My favorite Viking, Torgir (tourguy), met us. Fuck yeah. There’s a gigantic rocky hill over yonder and it’s all lit up with a castle up top. Prolly old as fucken hell. It’s called the Frederiksten fortress, and it was built in the 1600’s. Hell of a good fortress too, cuz no invading army has ever captured it by force (but it was occupied by Nazis in WWII). As a matta of fack, the Swedes tried to take it six times between 1658 and 1814, but they never got it.

Chuck and his favorite viking, Torgir.

The show was at the Feelgood Bar, and put on by a local legend named Big Daddy. Like it says, he’s a big jolly guy, prolly 6 foot 6, wearing a Jesus lizard shirt, a black leather trench coat & a black leather cowboy hat. He’s a complete sweetheart. Tourguy says his house is like a record shop and a venue in one marvelous space. He’s had some crazy shows there in the past, and recently the local paper wrote a piece about him and his eccentric house. He took good care of us, and got us the finest pizza money could buy in Halden. He also sent in one of his comrades to sell us a big cube of hash. Bad-ass!

After we load in and soundcheck, we walked a few blocks away to a pub, which was fine but now rain was coming down pretty steady, and it seemed like midway thru our walk, instead of coming down normally like rain does, it began to come down horizontally. The wind turned the rain into what felt like small flecks of glass against your face. By the time we got to the pub, it was like we just got out of the shower. Jackets were drenched. Faces were red and dripping. It was insane. A few beers later we headed off into the sidewards rain again. Andrew said something funny about feeling like he was out at sea.

By the time we got back to the Feelgood Bar, I sadly realized that I left my messenger bag at the pub! Fuck!! …So I walked back out into the storm and found my bag. We were re-united, and it felt so fucken good! But it felt like shit to be back out in that shitty rain again. This time when I got back to the Feelgood Bar, every layer of clothes I had on was soaked. Full-bummer. Hell of a harsh on my mellow, bra. Thank the good lord above for hash! Hell of a good invention, god. Good one!

The show was fun. There was a buncha young kids playing some Nirvana inspired rock. They were awful nice kids, and they could harmonize with eachother real good, too! Sweet fellas, really. Buncha nice guys. Awful nice kids. Good kids. Real nice kids.

After the show it was “get back in the fucking van, peaches!” cuz we’re going to fucken Den Helder (Netherlands)….